


take my love, take it down

by lastwingedthing



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 17:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2476118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/pseuds/lastwingedthing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the chaos after King Joffrey's wedding Sansa and Shae find each other, and their freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take my love, take it down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WildAndFreeHearts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildAndFreeHearts/gifts).



Night comes quickly in the high-walled King's Landing streets. The buildings seem to loom inward over the rough-stoned roads, and the faces that appear seem shadowed and strange, leering from behind the lank fall of unwashed hair.

Sansa rushes down the streets and alleys behind Ser Dontos. All haste, as if speed alone could outpace her fear.

She has not been into the lower city since the day of the riots.

Sansa ought to feel joy, she supposes. Joffrey is dead. Died, horribly, in pain; died in torment, as he had tormented her for so many months. She could still see his face in her mind, see the fear that had filled his eyes at the end. She ought to feel vengeful, triumphant, as a true child of the Starks and the North should.  

She's been afraid for so long, though. She'd seen the Queen ordering men to take Lord Tyrion as she ran. Sansa knows what will happen to her if the King's Guard catch her too.

The fear fills her up completely, and there is no room for anything else. Not relief, not vengeance, not even curiosity for where Ser Dontos might be taking her. There is nothing left but fear and the running.

When a cloaked figure steps out from a doorway and grabs her arm, Sansa screams aloud, high and sharp. Only for a moment - then the figure pushes back the hood of her cloak. It's Shae.

Sansa has not seen her for more than a day. She had to send Tyrion for another handmaiden to dress her hair for the King's wedding, in the end. She had been so worried about Shae, she had begged Lord Tyrion to look for her, to make sure she was well.

But in the confusion of the wedding and Joffrey's death, Sansa had forgotten her.

It turns out that there is one more emotion Sansa has left. Shame tastes like bile, rising up in her throat.

If the Queen's men are looking for Sansa, they might take Shae as well. They could do anything to her, if they thought Shae might know where her mistress had fled to.

They could do it anyway, just to amuse themselves.

Shae was handmaiden to a traitor's daughter, a kingslayer's wife, and no-one would lift a hand to defend her. If Shae hadn't found her now - if Sansa doesn't warn her -

Fear for her handmaid is another cold clench around her heart, stopping her tongue.

It's Shae that speaks, before Sansa can find her voice.

"Sansa! My lady, what are you doing down here?"

Ser Dontos tugs at Sansa's elbow to pull her onward. He glances back over his shoulder, fearfully, but Sansa ignores him. They have a moment more - they _must._

"Joffrey is dead," Sansa says, quietly. "He was poisoned, at the feast. The goldcloaks took Tyrion Lannister - the Queen thought he did it - so I ran."

Shae gasps, too loud on the quiet street. She is gripping Sansa's arm so hard it hurts. There is something in her face, some deep passion Sansa has never seen from her before. Unlike Sansa she does not look fearful, though - her expression seems angry, wild.

Ser Dontos tugs at Sansa's other arm, hard, and Sansa bites her lip and looks behind her shoulder, too.

"Shae - you need to run, Shae. You need to leave King's Landing. They think Lord Tyrion killed the king, and you are his wife's handmaiden - "

She stops when Shae tenses, grips her arm again.

"Where are you running to, my lady? Where is this man taking you?"

Sansa shakes her head. She cannot worry now, she cannot.

"It doesn't - there wasn't time to talk! We had to run. I know Ser Dontos is my friend."

But he is looking down and away, he will not meet her eyes.

"Who are you taking her to, Ser? Varys? Littlefinger? The Queen?" Shae's voice is harsh. "Any one of them will give you more gold than you've ever seen in your life before."

Ser Dontos yelps. "I wouldn't - I would never take my lady to any who might harm her! You do not understand. She will be safe, protected - "

Shae snorts. "And what will be the price for that protection? Whatever it is, she'll pay it, not you."

Sansa feels cold, all over, a chill settling on her like a northern fog.

She wants to trust Ser Dontos, she wants to believe him. He is so kind, and so grateful to her. Being around him makes _Sansa_ feel kind. He gave her a beautiful necklace, an heirloom of his house -

She wants so much to believe that he is taking her to safety.

She wants a lot of things.

She wants the news from the North to be lies, she wants to find her home still standing, her mother and all of her brothers alive. She wants to meet her brother's wife, she wants to meet her mother's family. She wants the past months to have been nothing but a fevered nightmare. She wants Lady - she wants her father -

Wanting things hasn't gotten Sansa very much, lately. Trusting people hasn't gotten her very much.

Numbly, she realises that Ser Dontos could do very little to save her on his own. And if he thought she'd trust his friends, he would have told her who they were. His silence is enough of an answer.

"My lady - my lady, please. You can't trust this woman. She's just a servant, who knows who pays her? My lady, you must come with me."

Sansa shakes her head. Everything feels like it is happening very slowly.

"Shae. Shae, I don't know where else I can go. If I stay in King's Landing the Queen will throw me in prison, like my father." She swallows hard, feeling the thick soreness in her throat that promises tears. "Will you come with me, Shae? You can't stay here either. Maybe you will find somewhere to be safe, wherever - wherever we are going. I will try to help you, I will try."

Sansa knows that Shae is only a handmaiden, but even so, she is fierce and wild and vengeful, like a Northerner should be. If it was her who'd lost her family, Sansa knows that Shae would rage, hunt down her enemies, rejoice at her revenge. She isn't anything like Sansa.

But she's kind, too. She's looked after Sansa for so long, she's been the only person Sansa can trust to be kind.

More than anything else, right now, Sansa wants to know that Shae will be safe.

Shae closes her eyes for a moment. Watching her, Sansa is struck by the look on her face, that wild desperate anger Sansa's never seen from her before.

Then Shae grips Sansa's hand hard, opening her eyes to look directly at Sansa's face.

"Sansa. Sansa, you can't trust him. Neither of us would be safe if we went with him. But we could go on our own, together, instead. I think - I have - "

Suddenly Shae's voice breaks. She is crying, silently, tears streaming down her face.

"I have a way to get us away from here, Sansa. Somewhere we can be safe. Somewhere no-one from this damn place will ever find us."

Ser Dontos shakes his head hard and starts to pull Sansa away, but suddenly there is a knife - Shae has a knife, pulled out from under her sleeve to point at Ser Dontos's throat.

Sansa is hypnotised by the gleam of it, by the shine.

Servants aren't supposed to carry weapons. Has Shae had it all this time?

"Let us go." Shae's voice is hard, the accent thicker in her voice than usual. "If you ever cared anything for her, let us go."

"Shae - " Sansa's own voice sounds weak and small. She looks down at her handmaid - it still feels strange, to look down at a grown woman.

Shae squeezes her hand.

"Sansa, do you trust me?"

It would be a foolish thing, to trust a woman - a foreign handmaiden - with her life. No-one in their right mind would give up even the scanty protection of a knight like Ser Dontos for the companionship of a serving woman.

But the world has been upside-down ever since Sansa's father was arrested, and maybe turning upside-down herself is the only way to survive it.

She squeezes Shae's hand back.

"I trust you."

 

 

 _I can get us passage on a ship_ , Shae had told Sansa, as they ran through the streets together, and Sansa imagined a fishing boat, perhaps, or even one of the small boats that traded grain up and down the coast. Something inconspicuous, a boat so small that even a servant could afford to buy a place aboard.

They'd make their way out of King's Landing, hide out in a village so tiny the King's men would never find them. Maybe they'd go south to the Tyrell's lands, maybe if they were quiet and clever and lucky enough, Margaery's family would be able to help them - if they were lucky -

Sansa wrapped the cloak Ser Dontos had given her more tightly around her fine dress and shivered.

But they ran right past the beaches and shallow water where the fishing boats and small craft were beached, all the way to the proper docks where Sansa had never been before. There was a thick scent of rot in the air, stronger and stranger than the usual city reek, and underneath that the salt tang of the sea.

It was almost full dark, now. A thick fog was sweeping in over the water.

They stopped in a narrow street lit with a few grimy glass lanterns. Shae started pounding at a door to their left. There was no answer at first, but after a minute or two, the door finally swung open. The figure inside was vaguely familiar, someone Sansa had seen in the Red Keep. Finally Sansa recognised him as Tyrion's sellsword, the rough man he occasionally dined with in his rooms.

Tyrion had warned her never to let herself be in a room alone with him, and not to trust him. She let the hood of her cloak fall further forward over her face.

"You again!" He sounded drunk, almost to the point of slurring. "Don't tell me you've changed your mind, after all of that."

"I've changed my mind again, after all of that." Shae's voice was steady. "I want the things he promised me."

The man snorted. "And why the hell should I give them to you? After all the noise you made about it. My face still hurts - you've got a good arm on you."

Shae makes an exasperated noise and pushes past him. When Sansa follows, head bent low, the man ignores her.

"I don't care," Shae snaps. "You deserved it. You all deserve it. Give me my things!"

The man laughs. "What will I get for it?"

Shae isn't laughing. She's reached a small chest sitting on a table in one corner of the room, with an open padlock dangling from the lid. "How about a sight you'll never see again?"

With no more ceremony than that, she tugs at the straps of the dress she's wearing, loosening it til it drops in a puddle at her feet.

Underneath it, she's completely naked.

Sansa gapes, shocked into silence. She's never seen another person naked before - certainly no-one like Shae.

She cannot imagine how Shae can just _stand_ there, completely unashamed to be nude in front of two people. Shae's rummaging inside the chest, but Sansa isn't paying attention to what she finds there.

She can't stop looking at Shae. Her long pale limbs, the way her body swells and curves at her breasts and hips and buttocks. She can't stop looking.

She'd never realised Shae was so beautiful.

When Shae finally pulls out a long underdress from the chest, Sansa almost sighs aloud.

She pulls it over her head quickly, and then a longer dress, light blue. It's fine fabric, embroidered at the sleeves and neckline - a lady's dress, not a servant's. Sansa frowns.

"Bronn, step outside a moment," Shae says, once she is dressed.

He grins. "What, and miss the next show? Who's your friend?"

Shae shakes her head. "None of your business. She's not like me. _Go_."

It's the wrong approach. Bronn frowns and steps closer to Sansa. Instinctively, Sansa flinches back, but not fast enough to stop him pushing back her hood.

His jaw drops. Sansa tenses all over, ready to run - but all at once he starts laughing. Sansa feels herself sag a little in relief.

"This is your revenge, is it? Taking his money and stealing his wife? Shit, you've got more balls than any of us. Won't end well for you, but I'll wish you luck  for it anyway. Seven Gods, he'll rue the day he met you!"

He walks out the door whistling. Sansa goes to pull her hood back up, but her hands are shaking. She doesn't understand anything that is happening here. The _he_ Bronn mentioned must be Lord Tyrion, of course, but she doesn't understand anything that is happening here.

"Can - can we trust him?" The words come out uncertain. Shae certainly seemed to act like he was a friend, even though she'd never seen them speak before.

Shae snorts again. "Not for long."

She hesitates for a minute, looking down. Then she holds something out.

"Sansa, can you try this on?"

It's Shae's own dress, the same one she's worn for as long as Sansa's known her. Sansa shakes her head slowly, confused. Only a common woman, a handmaiden, would wear a dress like that. And even if it wasn't, it will be too short for Sansa. It will look like a castoff she's outgrown.

Shae bites her lip. "Sansa, we need to be clever. I can't call you my lady anymore. I shouldn't even use your real name." She steps forward, to take Sansa's hands again. "If you act as my handmaiden, no-one will guess who you really are. You'll be safe."

Sansa swallows hard. It makes sense, it all makes sense. But -

"Where are you taking me, Shae? Where can we go?"

Shae smiles. Like her earlier anger it seems feverish, and too bright.

"Your husband bought me passage on a ship to Pentos. It sails with the tide at midnight tonight. The captain is a rich man, Sansa. The goldcloaks will let him sail with a bribe or two, and he's a Pentos man. He doesn't care about another dead Westeros King, only gold. It's only a few days, and then we'll be outside the Seven Kingdoms. We'll be safe."

Outside the Seven Kingdoms? Out of the reach of the Lannisters? It is almost unimaginable.

And Sansa knew that her husband was kind, but to give a gift like this to his wife's handmaiden - it makes no sense, no sense at all.

But the fine dress was waiting for Shae, with Tyrion's man to guard it. Sansa can see more things in the little chest - jewellery, a bulging purse, even a pair of pretty embroidered slippers. It makes no sense, but it has to be true. The evidence is right in front of them.

She's chosen, now, and there's no choice left but to follow Shae for as long as she can, or until she finds safe haven at last.

The cloth of Shae's dress is soft enough, when she finally pulls it over her head.

 

 

Shae is different, on board the ship. Their cabin is so tiny even Shae can cross the floor in two strides, and after her manic energy in King's Landing Sansa had imagined she would pace the room like a caged wolf.

Instead she is seasick. Dreadfully so.

After the first miserable night Sansa herself is fine, but for Shae the sickness lingers on and on. Even water makes her vomit. Sansa has to carry bucket after reeking bucket out of the cabin and down the long corridor to where the ship's boys can dispose of them. The big wooden buckets are heavy, and the handles rough unpolished wood, digging painfully into her hands.

She has to carry fresh water too, the same way, so that Shae may bathe. Inside the privacy of their cabin, they split the water equally between themselves; but it is Sansa who helps Shae sponge herself, Sansa who carries the dirty water away again after they are done.

There are the reeking night buckets, too; they stink, but the humiliation is far worse than the smell.

The first night, Shae had taken her hands and explained everything, all the things Sansa would have to do so that every other person aboard the ship would believe she truly was Shae's maid, and Shae herself a great lady.

All the things Shae had once done for her.

Sansa had wanted to refuse, wanted to beg Shae to think of another way. She wasn't like Shae - she was a lady, a daughter of House Stark. She had to think of the dignity of her house, her position.

She isn't like Shae.

But her traitor mind whispered that all the Starks who had put pride and dignity above their own safety were dead.

Sansa isn't like Shae at all. But if she wants to survive, she might have to try to be.

Even so, she cries, sometimes. Over the awkward weight of the buckets, the blisters on her hands. Sailors call things to her as she works, terrible lewd things that made her blush. But her shame just made them laugh harder. No-one hurts her, but the things they say are bad enough to make her cry from that, too.

It takes several days before she realises that she's not the only one crying.

After the first terrible days, Shae's sickness grows less; she can manage to swallow a few sips of thin meat broth or softened cracker bread, if Sansa sits beside her and pleads with her to eat. But whenever Sansa leaves the room, or when she thinks Sansa is asleep, she cries. Silent, motionless tears that make Sansa's heart ache for her. And she doesn't speak, she doesn't laugh. No jokes or teasing or stories at all.

Worry for her makes Sansa's stomach churn.

But when Sansa finally asks Shae what is wrong, Shae turns to face the wall, and doesn't answer.

Timidly, Sansa lays a hand on her shoulder.

"Please, Shae. What is it? Is there anything I can do?"

The thought that there is anything that can defeat _Shae_ is terrifying.

But Shae just shakes her head again, and refuses to look at her.

"You don't want to know, Jeyne. It doesn't matter."

Jeyne is the name they've been using for her, when any of the sailors are around. It's a common enough name in the North and other parts of Westeros as well, though Sansa doesn't think she could pass as a native of any land south of the Riverlands.

But Shae hasn't used that name when they're alone in the cabin before.

Sansa's hand tightens.

"Shae - Shae, please. What's happened? What's wrong?"

But Shae just shakes her head and turns away.

 

 

By the time they finally land in Pentos, Shae has lost weight - a shocking amount, from a woman already slender. Sansa has had no time to sit and brood over her own worries, no time to feel confined in their tiny cabin. All her energy is spent in coaxing Shae to eat just one more fragment of bread, one more spoonful of the rich stewed dried apples she'd managed to talk out of the head cook.

Tyrion's gifts are more generous even than the passage across the sea. Shae tells Sansa that on shore, there is a little house waiting for them, with fine furniture, a little garden. Sansa can't imagine why he would have done this for Shae.

But whatever it was that Shae had done for him, it doesn't encourage her to accept his gifts. They never so much as step foot inside that house.

They take rooms in an inn, instead, a fine high-ceilinged building down near the harbour. There is enough of Tyrion's money left for that, too.

Sansa doesn't ask any questions. Sansa doesn't say much to Shae at all.

On land, with fresh food to eat, Shae seems to do better. She still sleeps most of the day away, but the vomiting and the sickness has passed.

While she sleeps, Sansa spends a lot of time sitting by the broad window of their room, looking down over the bay. The country here is very like King's Landing, far more like King's Landing than King's Landing is like Winterfell. Looking at the trees and herbs in the gardens, the bright sun beating down on stone paths, it is hard to believe that she is in another land entirely - one where the Lannisters do not rule.

Most of the time, she cannot believe in her own freedom. But every now and then, with the light on her face, she will remember that Joffrey is dead and Westeros is far away across the sea. There are still spies here, they must be careful, and hide Sansa's true identity - but Sansa is still safer than she has been since she left Winterfell.

It is not joy, not exactly. But the absence of fear is still intoxicating.

 

 

On the third morning, she comes into the room early, smiling. Along with the usual breakfast of fresh bread and fruit and soft white cheese, the kitchen maid gave her a small plate of soft sweet cakes, warm from the ovens and flavoured with lemons. Though the texture is very different from the Westerosi cakes Sansa loves, the taste is still alike enough to make her smile, remembering days long past in Winterfell.

It has been so long since even a simple pleasure like this could touch her.

Sansa lays the plates on the table carefully, trying not to make any noise that could wake Shae, but when she turns she finds Shae already awake and watching her.

"Good morning, my lady," Sansa says cheerfully, practicing the words that must become second nature to her. "Look - Hara has made us lemon cakes!"

From the bed, Shae smiles - just a small smile, but it is another tiny triumph.

"They do smell good. Can I try one?"

They eat breakfast together perched on the edge of Shae's bed, dividing the warm soft cakes between them. The last cake, though, Shae urges Sansa to take.

Sansa shakes her head. "You should have it."

"No," Shae says, and she is smiling properly now, a true smile that meets her eyes. "No, you like them much more than me. You should take it."

She's sitting very close to Sansa, close enough that Sansa can feel her warmth. Her eyes are bright, looking up at Sansa - even sitting down Sansa is the taller.

All at once Sansa is blushing, for no reason she can name.

"Thank you, my lady," she says, very quietly, and takes the cake.

Afterwards Sansa rises up to tidy the plates away, but Shae touches her arm to hold her back.

"Sansa," she says, very quietly. Something about hearing her name on Shae's lips makes Sansa's heart beat faster. "I am sorry I have kept us here so long, so sorry. We're in danger, Sansa. We need to leave here very soon. Today, if we can manage that."

"Leave the inn?"

"Leave Pentos. It isn't safe here. It's too easy for someone else to hear that Tyrion paid passage for a woman to Pentos, bought a house for a woman in Pentos. Anyone could follow us here."

Sansa's heart beats fast again, but this time she knows it is fear.

"How - what do we do?"

Shae is quiet for a little while, looking away from her. She feels a sudden surge of terror - Shae is going to leave her, Shae is going to abandon her like everyone else. Sansa will truly be alone.

But then Shae looks up at her again.

"There is a place I can go to in another city. There is work I can do there. They'll keep me safe, and keep you too, if I tell them you are with me. It is not always a kind place, but there are kind people there. They will be good to us."

It sounds too good to be true. Shae sounds too hesitant and uncertain for it to be true.

"I haven't told you things, Sansa." Suddenly the words seem like they are bursting out of Shae's mouth. "I have lied to you. I don't want to tell you the truth, I don't want you to be ashamed of me."

"Shae - "

"I'm not really a handmaiden, I was never a handmaiden."

She looks down, hands twisting knots into the blankets.

"Sansa, I'm sorry. I'm a whore. I was your husband's whore."

Sansa is quiet. She ought to be angry, she supposes. She ought to be disgusted that Shae would even mention such things in front of her. Probably she should have put it all together weeks ago, and left Shae long before. She's been hearing things about Lord Tyrion's habits for years. She'd known he'd paid women before.

But what was one more stain on her honour, with all the rest?

What's one more humiliation? It's not as if she could possibly be jealous of Shae.

And this is _Shae_. Shae, who has looked after Sansa for so long, been so kind to her. Almost the only one who'd given Sansa affection, kind smiles she could trust.

Sansa's heard that the best whores live like fine ladies, but Shae acted the handmaiden for her - brushing Sansa's hair, bringing her bathwater, carrying away nightsoil in buckets. She ought to have hated Sansa, but instead she was kind.

She thought of the fine things Tyrion left for Shae, the money, the house. She thought of the way Shae had spent most of her time on the ship crying.

A younger Sansa might have simply asked Shae if she'd loved Lord Tyrion. If that was why she was so sad.

But Sansa doesn't want to cause Shae more grief, and besides, she thinks she knows the answer already.

Sansa is quiet, for a while. Thinking.

"Will I be safe there?" she asks finally. "Will they let me stay in a brothel with you? I won't have to - "

Her face is flaming again.

Shae spins her head round suddenly to look at her. There is a sudden smile spreading across her face.

"Yes, of course you will be safe! I used to - before I came to King's Landing I used to work in Lys, in a fine house there. I made them a lot of money, they will let me do anything I want. If I say you are my handmaiden, no-one will touch you."

With that look on her face, Sansa can believe her. But -

"Why did you leave?" Sansa asks, hesitantly.

Shae shakes her head. "It's not a good place. Not really. I was lucky, but most people in that life aren't. I didn't want to live somewhere like that anymore." She starts laughing, low and rough. "I thought Westeros would be better, because you don't keep slaves. I was such a fool."

Sansa frowns. "Well - isn't it better?" Westeros is the only truly civilised land in the world, the only place where they keep to the right ways and the worship of the true gods. Essos is full of slavers and barbarians. Everyone knows that.

Shae laughs again, shortly. "Are _you_ asking me that? After what your kings do to each other, to their people? Joffrey was a monster, and your folk called him a king and did everything he wanted. What good is freedom if you are dead?"

"Are the kings of Lys kinder, then?"

Shae looks at her and smiles. "There are no kings in Lys."

 

 

The second boat is much smaller than the first, their cabin more like a cupboard set into the wall. Even Shae cannot stretch her legs out, and Sansa has to curl herself up tight to fit into the bunk to sleep. The ship is bound for Volantis, their passage bought with Tyrion's money under Shae's own name, but when the boat docks to take on fresh water at a port in the Stepstones they sneak away from it, ashore.

The next boat is a grain barge, sailing its slow way through the Stepstones south to Lys. They sleep in the far end of the hold, among cloud-soft sacks of northern wool, though from the way he speaks to her Sansa thinks that Shae could have slept in the captain's bed, if she hadn't refused to leave Sansa alone in the hold.

The captain is kind enough to the prostitute's handmaid, but the sailors call things out to them both here too, in the coarse local Valyrian Sansa doesn't really understand. Shae knows what they're saying, but she just laughs and calls incomprehensible remarks right back. Even if sometimes, later, Sansa catches her look of disgust.

Sansa knows that Shae is still seasick, often, but it doesn't seem to be affecting her so much this time.

They spend a lot of time practicing Valyrian together, in the privacy of the rear deck where few people can hear them over the sound of the waves. Sansa learnt a great deal of High Valyrian from the Maester at Winterfell, but it does her little good in understanding the liquid long-voweled local speech. Shae is a stern teacher; no matter how many times Sansa complains that a phrase or word is wrong, not like the formal old speech she was taught, Shae shakes her head and insists she speak the common way.

And truly, what use is pride? What use is any of it, when Sansa will be handmaiden to a whore?

No-one will ever look for Lord Eddard Stark's eldest daughter in a brothel.

 

 

They finally come to Lys in the late afternoon, sailing through hazy mist into a broad, indented harbour. The city is spread wide along the steep rocky shores and even onto the little islands that rise up here and there in the middle of the water. There are boats everywhere, and a few tall fine ships sailing serenely between them like swans through a duckpond.

The city itself looks very fine from what Sansa can see, full of beautiful houses half-hidden by gardens and trees. There is so much greenery that the city looks more like a forest, or a garden.

Behind the city the ground rises off into low, steep hills, cloud-hung and brilliant green. It is very beautiful, but there is no flat land, no space for farms. Sansa is enough of a Northern girl to notice that.

Shae is staring out at the view with a strange look on her face. Not quite grief; it is rawer than that, more pained.

Sansa steps closer, touches her arm.

"My lady?"

Shae sighs. "It doesn't matter, Jeyne," she says, using the false name as she always does when others might hear. "I thought I would never see this place again."

Sansa doesn't know what to say. Shae's pain is palpable; Sansa wants, very desperately, to help her, but she doesn't know what she can do.

She knows that Shae only came back to Essos for Sansa, to keep Sansa safe. Even though it grieves her so much to come here, to have taken Tyrion's charity.

Sansa is a Northern girl, she knows what pride is.

Shae didn't give her these things because Sansa is a lady, and it is the duty of the smallfolk to give the nobles their due. Shae isn't of Sansa's people, she isn't of the North. Sansa knows enough to know Shae wouldn't care about those things.

If she helped Sansa, it was not duty or honour that made her do it, but only that she wanted to. That she thought helping Sansa was right.

A gift, freely given; and Sansa will never know how she can repay it.

Thinking about it makes Sansa's heart pound in her chest.

 

 

The House of Red Lilies is tall and narrow, made of dark wood. Inside, though, it is bright and spacious; the walls are painted white, and the windows are open all day for the breeze from the sea.

It is hot here too, but the air feels different from King's Landing, humid and thick. It rains in Lys almost every afternoon, and there are flowers everywhere, bright colours and shapes that Sansa cannot name.

Shae has her own spacious rooms near the top of the house, a reception room and a bedroom and even a tiny private room for Sansa, too. The house is nothing like she expected a brothel to be. She sees nothing that would have shamed her in Winterfell. All the women wear clothes as fine as any in the Red Keep, and they seem to spend as much time in drinking with the men, singing and telling stories, as they do in the privacy of the bedrooms.

Shae is popular not because she is beautiful - though Sansa still thinks she is the most beautiful woman in this place - but because she is clever, and funny, and knows how to tease the men when they talk together. Sansa likes to watch her, on the nights when she waits on Shae, bringing her and her clients wine and sweet cakes, relighting the beautiful paper lanterns and bringing them painted tiles for all kinds of clever games.

Some nights the men don't even stay for sex. Those nights are the best of all. After the men have left she and Shae will share the last of the wine and cakes together, while Shae tells her funny stories about her clients, and then Shae will change into the soft fine sleeping robe, and Sansa will brush her hair.

Often on those nights she stays in the room and sleeps in the big bed, with Shae.

In her childhood, in Winterfell, she almost never slept in a bed alone. There was always someone else to keep warm besides - a handmaiden or a castle girl, or even sometimes her sister. In her big lonely bed in King's Landing she'd missed the comfort of another warm body beside her at night as much as she'd missed the cool nights, or the snow.

Shae never speaks of it, but Sansa thinks she must be lonely too.

There's nothing better than those slow sleepy mornings, enjoying the feel of the broad bed covered in silken-soft sheets, the morning cool and Shae's warm body beside her. Everyone sleeps late, in the brothel, and it will be mid-morning before Sansa has to wake and begin the tasks of the day.

Most of the other women are kind to Sansa, handmaidens and ladies of the house alike. They tease her for her thick Westeros accent, but gently.

As tall and shy and clumsy-tongued as she is, she'll never be a rival for the rich men they all strive to please. She knows nothing of Lysene poetry or history to play clever word games, none of the dances they've all practiced since childhood.

Instead, while the others practice songs and fortune-telling games she spends her spare time in sewing. Everyone wears fine clothing here, all kinds of beautiful embroidery that Sansa has never seen before. Few people have seen embroidery like hers either, the fine stitches she learned in Winterfell and King's Landing. The other women will pay her for the patterns she knows, ravens and wolves and roses in the intricate, stylised Westerosi forms. Sansa saves every coin she earns.

She knows that not all lives here are so easy.

Down round the harbour there are slums far poorer than anything Sansa saw in King's Landing. The beggars are famine-thin, the rough wooden shacks rotting from the roof down.

She has heard a little of the history of Lys from the others in the brothel. How the rich silver mines were worked out in the time of the Valyrians; how the rush to dig new mines ruined much of the good topsoil, washed away forever in floods and wild storms.

Lys cannot even feed itself, now. Almost all the grain is imported. The people turned to small terraced gardens: rare herbs and flowers for perfumes and poisons, sweet fruit to trade with the wealthy folk of the mainland. But even that is not enough. The seas are overfished; the rich beds where divers once gathered mother-of-pearl were poisoned by a Volantene fleet in the years of war following the Doom.

What else do the people of Lys have left to sell but their children?

The brothels of Lys are all their pride now, and their shame.

Foreign men in Lys assume that every woman - every pretty child - they see on the streets is for sale. For their own safety, most women and even some men cover their hair and their faces with veils, a sign that they are protected by the Weeping Goddess and not to be touched.

For the most part, it works.

For the most part.

Sansa's witnessed thing's she never could have imagined, back in Winterfell. Things as horrifying as anything she saw Joffrey do.

She cannot even imagine what would have happened had Joffrey come to Lys. What he could have done here. 

Sometimes she still has nightmares where she sees him striding down the wide Street of Limes with his crossbow in his hands while Sansa stands frozen in the doorway of the temple, unable to move to seek refuge there, unable to run.

But even so.

Even so - in the morning Sansa wakes up in the familiar comfort of their rooms, Shae warm at her back and the scent of lime blossom and frangipani blowing in with the morning breeze. She is safe, here, behind tall sharp-topped walls. The brothel-mistress - once a whore herself - spares no expense in men or weapons to keep her women safe. And between them both Sansa and Shae have coin enough that they could leave at any time.

Sansa knows that Shae is not entirely happy here, but most of the time she seems content enough, laughing with her clients and the other women of this place. Telling funny stories.

That is its own comfort, to see Shae living so happily here.

In the late afternoon, before the first clients start arriving, Sansa veils herself in a light drapery of undyed linen.

Behind the veils she could be any servant, any woman. The Queen herself would not know Sansa if she served her here with her own hands.

Freedom from fear is the greatest blessing she could ask from the gods, the Maiden and the Mother and the others who must still be protecting her. She could ask for no happiness more than this.

 

 

One sleepy morning she comes back to Shae's rooms early, with a plate of sweet ripe mango slices to share for their breakfast. Shae is quiet, as she often is in the early part of the day. Usually Sansa has enough bright chatter for both of them, but this day she is silent too.

She doesn't think Shae noticed anything amiss, but after the meal is finished Shae turns to look at her, soft-eyed.

"You're quiet today, Jeyne. Is anything wrong?" Even in the privacy of their rooms she calls Sansa Jeyne, now. The secret is too precious for a slip.

Her touch on Sansa's arm is very gentle. Sansa shakes her head.

"No, nothing. I'm alright." She hesitates a moment. "Shae, I heard some of the women talking today, down in the kitchens. They said that the reason Sellia and Oranie aren't speaking to each other anymore is because they were - lovers, but they quarrelled at the  Flower Drum festival last month, and that's why they don't share a room anymore. Shae, is that - were they really - ?"

She trails off into blushing stammers. The girl she was could have never even spoken of a matter like this, _never_.

But Shae just laughs, gentle and kind. "Oh, Jeyne. Of course they were lovers - you must be the last person in the world to know that!"

Sansa shakes her head. "But I don't - _how_? They're both women - "

Shae is still smiling. "Have you really never heard of these things before? Two women can be lovers just as two men can, or a man or a woman. It's the same thing in the end. Some women love only their own kind, just as some men do. Some can love both. But it's all the same love."

Sansa knows her face must be like fire.

"We didn't talk about these things, Shae!" Then she pauses. "I thought - there were things people said, about the Lady Margaery, sometimes. Things I heard her say. I didn't understand it at all."

"Lady Margaery? I'm almost sure those things were true." Her smile fades a little. "Do you mind it?"

Sansa shakes her head a quick no. "Of course not! She was kind to me. I just wondered, I mean. How those women know. If they are like that." She pauses. "Shae, have you ever - "

Shae looks up at her, frowning. "Sometimes I have, but not for years. When I do it, it's because I want to, Jeyne. Because I want it and she wants it, too. That's how you know."

 _But how do you_ know _,_ Sansa wants to ask. She doesn't want to say it to Shae, though.

Shae's still looking at her though. Focused, intent.

"Sansa," she says, very low.

All at once Sansa's blushing again, speechless and red. She can't look at Shae, she can't.

But when she dares to lift her head Shae is open-mouthed in astonishment. She's blushing too.

" _Sansa_ ," Shae says again. Hearing her name, her real name, makes Sansa shiver all over. Shae blushes again and turns her head away, but Sansa carries the memory of it with her, all that afternoon.

 

 

That night Shae claims a headache, and doesn't go down to the main rooms with the other women. Instead, upstairs, she sits down with Sansa on the low cushioned chairs where she meets her clients.

"Sansa," she says again, serious and low. "You know, you've made plenty of coin yourself with the embroidery that you do. You could leave this place, if you wanted to. You could find yourself an apprenticeship down in the city, there are good craftswomen there that would take you on. You would be respectable again, and safe."

Sansa feels the sudden sharp pressure of tears in the back of her throat.

"Do you think I should go?"

_Do you want me to go?_

If Sansa was gone, Shae wouldn't have to worry about taking care of her anymore. She would be free.

But Shae just shakes her head, quick and sharp. "That wasn't what I meant. I just thought, you might be happier, away from this place."

Sansa bites her lip, looking down.

"I have been happy here, though. Here with you."

"Sansa - you are so young, Sansa!" Shae's voice sounds strange. "I'm just a funny whore, you can't say those things to me. You should go somewhere respectable, find a nice man to marry."

"I'm already married," she says with a shake of her head, though in truth by now Tyrion is likely dead. "I don't want a man."

"Then what do you want?"

Shae's voice is very quiet, almost shy. Maybe it's only that hesitancy that gives Sansa the courage to move closer.

"I want you to kiss me," she says. Face flaming. "If - if you wanted to."

Shae turns to look at her, lips barely parted in surprise.

"My lady," Shae says, very softly, but Sansa shakes her head no.

"Please, I don't want to be your lady! Can't I just - can't I just be your odd Northern handmaiden, who is too tall and talks funny?"

Finally Shae smiles, a tiny twitch of her mouth.

"If you want to be," she says quietly, and leans in.

The first touch of her mouth against Sansa's is a shock. It's just the gentlest touch, but somehow Sansa can feel it in every inch of her, sudden fire sparking through her that is centred somewhere between her legs.

Shae reaches out and takes her hand. Her bare skin sparks more fire.

Clumsily, Sansa follows her lead, kissing Shae back. After a time Shae parts her mouth, just a little, bites down so gently on Sansa's lip. Sansa gasps, and against her mouth she can feel Shae smiling as she does it again.

They kiss, and kiss, and kiss. Sansa feels her hands shake, her breath coming ragged, her whole body caught up in the feverish sensation. Shae's free hand is resting on her hip, now, to steady her; but that light pressure is like a torment. She wants to kiss Shae forever, she wants more touches to stoke this fire burning in her.

When Shae finally draws away from her, she is breathing hard too. There are two spots of colour high on her cheeks. Seeing Shae like this, affected like this, is like a revelation.

"Shae," Sansa says, wondering. "Shae, I don't want to leave you - can I stay with you? Will you take me with you, when you leave this place?"

Shae's hand tightens on her hand.

"You shouldn't say things like that to me. I'm just a whore." Her voice sounds flat, and defeated.

But Sansa shakes her head no.

"You're Shae. You are the bravest, strongest, kindest person I know. You saved me! And I - " Sansa squeezes Shae's hand again, reassurance and the joy of touching her both. "I love you, Shae."

Shae's eyes are very bright.

"Do you truly mean that?"

"I truly, truly do." She pauses. "If - if you don't want me, that's alright. You should go and be happy. I'll be safe here - "

Shae cuts her words off with another kiss.

"You're a foolish girl, Sansa Stark," she says, hoarsely. "You must know that I love you too."

Sansa smiles so wide her cheeks ache.

"I am foolish. I don't care. I love you, I want to be with you wherever you are. Wherever you go, I will go."

They kiss again and again in the golden glow of the lantern light.

**Author's Note:**

> SO this got a little out of control. Just a wee bit. Season four overwhelmed me with angry feelings - I am still SO MAD about what happened to Shae - and really a queer revisionist fix-it fic was always in the works, but I had no idea I had 7000 words worth of feelings. 
> 
> It probably helps that I listened to a lot of Stevie Nicks while writing this. A LOT. 
> 
> The chronology is probably a little bit handwavey, I have no idea how long actually passed between Shae's last conversation with Tyrion and the wedding, but I think it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Shae could still be down near the docks hiding out from/arguing with Bronn right up until the wedding.
> 
> I'm also going with the actors' real ages - so at the start of the story Sansa is 17-18 and Shae is in her early 30s. I'm assuming at least twelve months passes between the start and end of the story, though I've left it vague enough that you can imagine it's longer, if you like. There is still a significant age gap, but I think that by the end they're at a point where Sansa is old enough and mature enough that a relationship wouldn't be exploitative. 
> 
> Thank you again for giving me the chance to write this story!!


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